When racism attacks its eager keeper in Finland

Racism is a serious social ill that festers in all societies. Some parties, like the Persussuomalaiset (PS), appear to be dazzled by the political opportunities it offers in the way of votes, public attention and fueling their nihilism. What they forget, however, is that racism has no master and can bite back at its eager keepers.

Anders Breivik, who went on a mass-killing rampage in Norway on July 22, is a recent example of how racism and xenophobia can turn against those that let it out of the cage.

After racism bit back at one of its keepers in Norway, we have seen anti-immigration parties in Norway, Denmark and Sweden lose ground.

The PS as well appears rightfully concerned about the negative impact of the racism and bigotry that some of their party members have spread wholesale with gusto.

This explains why PS MP James Hirvisaari, one of the most far-right anti-immigration extremists in Timo Soini’s party, is appealing the government to stop the deportation of a Vietnamese family, according to Uusi Suomi.

Migrant Tales, which has followed the PS like white on rice, knows perfectly well that Hirvisaari’s appeal is only crocodile tears. It is a cheap political stunt by him to shake off some well-earned and self-inflicted labels of his party like racism, bigotry, homophobia, male chauvinism and neo-Nazism.

Hirvisaari’s opportunistic ploy is a positive sign, however. It shows that the PS is clearly concerned about the damage that its anti-immigration stand can and has inflicted on the party.

You can make up all the terms you want. “Controlled” immigration is a fave of the anti-immigration groups when they speak of foreigners. You know and I know that behind the word “uncontrolled” is Muslim and African refugees and immigration.

The YLE English language link is highly misleading in its content and terminology. In general these cases do not concern “deportation” of “workers”, but exclusion of their family members. They concern the family members of migrant workers from outside the EU who have been admitted to Finland as visitors only, and have then sought to remain in Finland as immigrants.

A general economic condition governs such cases of family reunification. The income of the family as a whole must be adequate to ensure that the family will not be eligible for income support (i.e. subsistence allowance/supplementary benefit). The cases now under discussion involve migrant workers who have been granted residence permits based on earning enough to satisfy this condition only when living alone and without dependents. Such dependents are permitted to visit the migrant worker in Finland, but not to remain in Finland as immigrants unless they can also find adequately paid employment that does not displace labour already available.

IIRC the economic condition was introduced at the insistence of the National Coalition Party, and to the extent that individual cases come into conflict with natural justice, I lay those cases at the door of that party. The fascists of Hirvisaari’s party also support the very same economic condition, and (to give the matter a colour that he can perhaps more readily and vividly understand) Hirvisaari might like to consider that if the economic condition does not prevent a low-paid Vietnamese from bringing a family to Finland, then it equally does not prevent a low-paid Somali from doing the same thing.

Finland is not a fiefdom ruled by the capricious diktat of J. Hirvisaari MP – who evidently cannot bear close contact with the individual suffering that results from the policies of his party – but a democratic republic governed by the rule of law. If Hirvisaari wishes to campaign for the abolition of the economic condition, then the first stage in this campaign would be to resign from PS.

Enrique, you favorite multicultural immigration country Canada is also very much a “controlled immigration” country. If you say Finland should follow the example of Canada, then why do you oppose controlling immigration in the same way?

Hi Allan, I don’t understand what you mean by “uncontrolled” immigration in Finland. By “uncontrolled” you mean allowing too many Muslims and Africans to Europe, right? I think, honestly, Allan, that you are over-stretching the meaning of “uncontrolled” for immigration. As you know, many anti-immigration groups like to use this term like “multiculturalism.”